Middletown program helps the homeless

MIDDLETOWN — The man lived in doorways, on the street, in the woods of Middletown — with occasional stays in the homeless shelter before he was on the streets again.

BY STEVE ISRAEL

MIDDLETOWN — The man lived in doorways, on the street, in the woods of Middletown — with occasional stays in the homeless shelter before he was on the streets again.

The young mother and her five children — from a few months to 8 years — lived in the rooms of friends or relatives, before they all ended up in a shelter. Then they were out on the street and looking for a home once again.

The one thing the young man and young woman had in common besides homelessness is this:

"No one ever believed in them," says John Harper, executive director at the Emergency Housing Group in Middletown.

That's changed now that the young man and woman have their own apartments, thanks to a federal mandate to have a plan to end chronic homelessness by 2015. The goal is to find housing for those without homes.

That's why the annual Housing and Urban Development homeless count, which occurs Thursday in Orange County and Friday in Ulster, is so important. And that's why Harper and other local officials want anyone who knows where a homeless person "lives" to contact them.

"These are the people we want to get off the streets and into housing," said Harper, who says there are more than 6,000 people who may be homeless during the year in Orange, Ulster and Sullivan counties.

The plan, he says, is for the county to pay the first few months of rent and utilities, and then a portion, until the person is able to pay all of it. So instead of government funding going to some of the region's shelters, it will go toward permanent housing.

"It's like finding a person without clothes," says Harper. "You have to first get him clothes. Or without food; you have to get him something to eat. Housing is a right, like that."

The plan seems to be working. In Sullivan County, the number of homeless in emergency housing has gone from 280 to about 50, according to John Van Etten, the Homeless Management Information Systems Coordinator for Sullivan.

It's also working for that young man and mother, according to their case workers.

Not only is the man in that $850 per month apartment, he has a job in a warehouse. And even though he was hurt on the job, he continues to work.

"Because if I don't, I'll lose it (the apartment)," he told Anne McKenna, supervisor of case management at Emergency Housing Group.

The young woman and her family have been living in a three bedroom, $1,100 per month apartment since September. Now she can focus on getting a job, so she's studying for her nursing degree.

But almost as important as a potential job, is what that apartment has meant for her self-esteem, says case worker Angela Kim.